by Len Webster
A knock on his door had him glancing up from the new contract he was drafting for a client. He dropped the red pen he was holding and got up, surprised to see her.
“Stella,” he breathed as he walked around his desk and approached his girlfriend’s best friend.
She laughed as he embraced her. They had kept in touch over the last month through text messages but hadn’t had the chance to actually catch up in person.
“All right, Sheridan, you can let go of me,” she teased and pushed off his chest.
“What are you doing here?”
She grinned as she reached into her handbag and pulled out a small white box with a pink ribbon fasted around it. “Happy Birthday.”
He groaned. “Stella, you shouldn’t have gotten me anything.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t. Delivering this to you is your birthday present from me. But the actual present, yeah, your girlfriend sent it my way.”
Pointing at the box, he asked, “This is from Josephine?”
“Yep,” she confirmed as she handed him the box. “I’d love to stay, but I didn’t put any money in the metre, and I have to get back to work. Happy Birthday, Max.”
“Thank you, Stella, for bringing this to me.”
“You’re my best friend’s boyfriend. I have to treat you the way she treats West, so you’re family. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
He nodded. “Definitely.”
Josie’s best friend turned and made her way out of his office. Max glanced down at the box, stunned that Josie had sent him a present all the way from Berlin. They planned to FaceTime when he got home from work. He even pushed back birthday drinks with Rob, Ally, Stevie, and Julian just to see his girlfriend on his birthday.
Max walked back to his desk and sat in the leather chair. He moved the contract away and set the box down. It wasn’t heavy. He told her he didn’t want anything for his twenty-sixth birthday. He had no idea what she could have possibly gotten him. Max reached up and pulled an end of the bow until it loosened. Then he removed the lid and set it down.
His heart stopped its beating at the sight of what she had sent him.
Reaching inside, he removed the frame and stared at the picture of them. It was from the night he took her to the ballet and she told him she loved him for the very first time. It was one of the best days of his life. And after all her promises to send him the picture, she had. Now he understood why she kept forgetting to send them to him. He took in the glass frame with a frosted outline of a city. Written in red glitter was Berlin has my heart.
No truer words had ever existed.
Berlin did have his heart.
Josephine was still there.
His chest tightened as he took in the smile on her face.
He was twenty-six and missing her.
Max set the frame aside, deciding he’d rather display it in his bedroom than in his office. He’d ask her to send him the actual files so he could have one on his desk. He looked back in the box and found an envelope. He took it out, ripped it open, and pulled out the card. When he opened it, a business card fell out, and he recognised it as one of hers.
He set down the birthday card and picked up the business card. Turning it over, he noticed an SD memory card taped to it. He removed it and took in what she wrote on the back of the card.
I know you wanted the others.
I’ve put them on this memory card.
xo
Smiling, he put the business card down and picked up the birthday card. It was a simple card that had Alles Gute zum Geburtstag on it—which he presumed was Happy Birthday in German. He opened the card and read what she had written to him.
Maxwell,
Happy twenty-sixth birthday, my La Vie En Rose. I am so sorry I can’t be there for your big day. It absolutely pains me to know that your terrible girlfriend couldn’t make it home in time for your birthday. I hope you have the most amazing day, and I can’t wait to FaceTime you tonight—
“Oh, Max …” Stella said, interrupting his reading. He glanced up to find her at his door.
“Hey, did you forget something?”
She smiled. “I did,” she said, walking towards him and reaching into her bag once more. When she approached his desk, Stella set another box on his desk. “I swear, I didn’t mean to forget to give you this. But I had to come back and make sure you got it. I’d probably finish reading the card first.” Then she took off and left Max alone with Josie’s presents.
He glanced back down and finished reading the card she wrote him.
I know us being apart hasn’t been easy, but it makes me appreciate our love so much more. Coming to Berlin didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. How we hoped it would turn out. But thank you so much for your patience. For your emails. For your text messages and calls. I think I would lose my mind if I didn’t hear your voice almost every day.
I miss you so much.
And I love you even more.
When I stood on that bridge with you, I knew you would always be someone special in my life. And I’m so glad that it was you who I got to spend my mother’s last moments with. And I am so thankful that you love me and are so patient with me.
You were an amazing friend.
A better lover.
A greater boyfriend.
Happy Birthday, my La Vie En Rose.
I’ll be home soon.
Love,
Josephine.
Max set the card down and pushed his rolled-up sleeves up his arm. Then he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his phone. He unlocked it and went to his call history. When he found her name, he pressed on it and held his phone to his ear as it rang. He lifted his eyes and stared at the picture of them.
When she answered the phone, he whispered, “I fucking love you, Josephine Faulkner.”
Her laughter was heavy with sleep. “Happy Birthday,” she said in a soft voice. The sounds of her bed sheets rustling echoed in her room. “What time is it?”
“I’m sorry to wake you. I think it’s really early in Berlin right now.”
She hummed. “It’s okay. I gotta get up anyways. So Stella dropped off your presents?”
“She did. Thank you. I love the picture of us. And you’re bloody right that Berlin has my heart. You need to come home soon.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Did you open the other present?”
Max threw an arm out and grasped the small box. “The small one?”
“Umm … yeah.”
“Why do you sound nervous right now?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Because this one means a lot.”
Max removed the ribbon with one hand and lifted the lid off. He blinked at what lay inside. His breath left him in an instant as his heart clenched tightly.
“Max?”
He swallowed hard. “I’m still here.”
“Did you open?”
He nodded. “I opened it.”
“A-and?”
He took out the small music box, remembering where he had seen it before. He lifted the lid, and sure enough, a ballerina emerged and twirled to the gentleness of “La Vie en Rose.”
“Josephine,” he breathed.
“Happy Birthday,” she said, sounding relieved.
“I fucking love you.”
“I fucking love you, too. I’m sorry I’m not home for your birthday.”
Max shot up from his chair and gently packed away his presents into the bigger box. “You’re not leaving your apartment anytime soon, are you?”
He heard her get off the bed and step on that one creaky floorboard she complained about the most. “Ugh,” she groaned.
“Josephine?” He grabbed his jacket behind his chair, folded it over his arm, and reached into his top drawer to pull out his car keys and wallet. He’d grab all his other stuff later tonight on his way home from PJ’s.
“Sorry. That stupid floorboard again. I always step on it! What were you saying?”
“Can you stay
in this morning?”
“Why?” she said with a sexy tone in her voice.
She knew exactly why.
“Because I need to see my girlfriend, and I’m hard thinking about her and the other birthday surprise she promised me.”
Josephine made a small laugh. “My whole day is yours.”
“I’ll be home in twenty minutes,” he promised.
It might not be the ideal birthday, but it was as close to perfect as he would get. Because he remembered all his lonely birthdays before her and knew that twenty-six would be the best year of his life so far.
Sometimes, battles were lost because fighting became too hard on the soul.
And that was how Josie had lost and conceded defeat. That was how she was sitting across from her father on a snowy Wednesday morning. They were in a café near the Nuese Museum. It wasn’t too far from Heidi’s ballet studio but close enough to the Australian Embassy should her father be called away.
“How’s Max doing?” her father asked once he had finished stirring the sugar into his coffee and setting it down on the saucer.
Josie knew what he was genuinely asking. Her boyfriend had not spoken to her father since before she left for Berlin. Max had mentioned that her father had called several times, but Max had ignored them all. He admitted he was terrified of the awful things he would tell her father should they ever talk. And it was quite possible that she had fallen even further in love with Max.
“He’s good,” she replied and sipped her hot chocolate. She set her cup back on the saucer and gazed out at the snow on the footpath.
She had been in Berlin for almost two months. She had fulfilled her promise and watched Heidi perform her first solo. She was definitely the better Faulkner offspring when it came to ballet. Josie was proud of her little sister for dancing with so much passion, grace, and beauty. They were all the traits Josie never had to continue to dance. No, those traits she had for law.
“You’re both going strong?”
A smile spread across her lips. Then she gazed back at her father. She had what he didn’t have. Undeniable love. He had that with Emily Faulkner until he threw it away.
“We are. It hasn’t been the easiest couple of months, but we still love each other.”
Her father smiled. “That’s good.”
This was the first time they had said anything more than a hello in the past two months. Not from lack of him trying. Josie always refused to want to discuss more. And he had to drop it if he didn’t want Heidi and Angelika to know that their relationship was as strained as it was.
“So what have you been doing with your time here?”
Josie’s finger traced the rim of her cup. She didn’t want her father to know what she was up to. She didn’t want anyone to know just yet. “Just been reading and exploring the city. There’s a lot of history here, so I’ve been busy.”
“Has Lazlo been treating you well?”
She nodded. Besides her sisters, Lazlo was her only friend in Berlin. He drove her around the city looking for English bookstores so she could find the right material and supplies for the online summer units she was taking. She had emailed Jason almost six weeks ago and asked if it was too late to enrol. He had told her how proud he was of her to rise above her grief and continue her degree. She made him promise not to tell Gordon or Max that she was back studying. Josie didn’t want the extra pressure or to disappoint anyone else if she were to fail her summer units.
“He has.”
“That’s good.” Her father reached over to the seat next to him and picked up his thick coat. She watched as he searched the pockets until he pulled out a small black box. He gazed at it for a long moment then turned and set it on the table. “Happy Birthday, Josephine.”
Her brows furrowed, shocked that he remembered her birthday without her reminding him. “You remembered it was today?”
He nodded. “I’m guessing you only agreed to coffee with me since it was. I’ve always known when your birthday is, Josephine. I hope you like it.”
She grasped the box and picked it up. He wasn’t going to buy back her love. She had only been civil with him for Heidi and Angelika’s sakes. Josie opened the box, and her jaw dropped.
It was a ring.
A beautiful gold ring with a small, light green princess cut diamond surrounded by even smaller diamonds.
“This was Mamma’s,” she breathed as tears succumbed her eyes.
“Yes,” her father confirmed. “She loved that ring. When I proposed to her, I didn’t have a lot of money. I had just started working at the Department of Foreign Affairs when I knew I wanted to marry Emily. So I bought her a ring I could afford without putting us in debt, and she knew that. I promised her that when I finally married her, I’d replace it with something flashier, but she told me no, that it was the ring. When I asked for a divorce, she had clutched her chest with her left hand, her engagement ring and wedding band staring at me. I told her to keep them, but she said she couldn’t.”
“She loved this ring.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I kept the wedding band—to remember her. But I thought that you should have her engagement ring.”
“Thank you,” she said, closing the box and setting it on the table. “I appreciate it, Dad. It’s the best present you’ve ever given me.”
And that was the truth.
Her father had given her many expensive presents throughout the years, but her mother’s favourite ring, that was sentimental.
“Josephine,” he said.
She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry about the media and the election. That’s why I didn’t invite you earlier. Johanna’s father has been running for election for years. I didn’t want you to be on some platform and on posters. I don’t even like how Heidi and Angelika are paraded around. They’re used to it, but you, I didn’t want that for you. When I asked you to come with me to Berlin at your mother’s funeral, I meant it. I want to be the father you need. That day at the airport, it got out of control. You were hysterical, and I didn’t know what to say to calm you down. I’ve never seen you so hurt, and you watched your mother die. So I had to let you go.”
Josie nodded. When she thought back to the day she landed in Berlin, she knew she was irrational and had overreacted. All she had to do was give her father a chance to explain, but she didn’t let him. And all he had to do was tell her that Johanna’s father was running for chancellor, and she would have stepped aside and said that she couldn’t be a part of an image she couldn’t represent truly.
“So how does it feel to have your father-in-law as the new German Chancellor?” Josie asked. She was hoping she’d sound sarcastic, but she was honestly intrigued.
“It’s a lot more work and pressure. It means that the normality I wanted Heidi and Angelika to have will never happen. They’re in the public eye more, so it means more security. I want them to grow up as normal kids.”
Josie reached out and covered her father’s hand with hers. “They’re gonna be okay. They’re good kids.”
He smiled. For the first time in months, he smiled like he meant it. “Thank you. For being here when you could have gone back home. You’ve kept their minds off the election.”
“I care about them, Dad. They’re my sisters.”
He covered their hands with his free one. “You should have told them it was your birthday.”
She shrugged. “They have enough to worry about before Christmas break. I’ll tell them after. Plus, I want to FaceTime Max tonight before he goes to bed. I haven’t been able to since he’s been working so much before Christmas.”
Just as her father parted his lips to say something, his phone rang. He let out a sigh, removed his hands from hers, and answered his phone.
“Yes. No, it’s okay. I’ll sort it out myself.” He hung up his call with another sigh. “I’m sorry, Josephine. I have to head back to the Embassy. Some Australian tourists have gotten themselves in trouble with i
mmigration. If you’re free later tonight, we could go out for dinner. Just you and me?”
Her father was trying.
She might never really forgive him.
There were too many years of disappointment between them.
But she would be civil.
That was how she managed to survive two months in Berlin with him.
“No. Australian tourists need you more right now. I’ll be fine. And sure, if I’m free later, I’ll call you.”
“You don’t want a ride back to your apartment?”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll be all right. The snow is only light out there, so I’m happy to walk.”
He nodded as he collected his phone and jacket and got out of his chair. “Happy Birthday again, Josephine.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she said before he left her and his barely touched coffee to exit the café. She watched him through the window and waved when he turned around to see her. That smile on his face radiated with hope.
Someday, they’d be all right.
Someday, they’d have a proper relationship.
Her birthday was the start of that someday.
Berlin wasn’t so bad.
It was filled with culture and history.
Filled with architecture and good food.
Berlin was beautiful.
But it wasn’t home.
As she walked through the streets towards her apartment, she couldn’t help but think of home. She dug her cold, bare hands into the pockets of her teal coloured coat. She had forgotten her gloves when she had taken Heidi to the studio this morning. Johanna had already left to take Angelika to school when she arrived at the manor. It was one of those rare instances that both her father and Johanna couldn’t take Heidi, so Josie had volunteered. She had even stayed for ten minutes to watch. And unsurprising to her, Heidi was beautiful when she danced. Heidi had told her in the government car that her old teacher would be returning in the new year after assisting with the New York City Ballet for the last year. Josie smiled and allowed her to tell her wonderful stories about Vick.
